On April 30, President Barack Obama denounced “hedge funds” that he claimed ruined concession discussions that might have enabled Chrysler to avoid filing for bankruptcy.

Since then, most of the outrage in the establishment media has focused on these holdouts. Matt Goldstein of Business Weekcalled them “cowards” for not revealing their names (remember the AIG bonuses, Matt?). No one in the establishment media leveled a similar charge at Team Obama when they similarly refused. When the holdouts issued a press release describing their legal rights and why they were asserting them, Jessica Pressler at NYMag.com disgracefully accused them of playing “the Obama-is-a-communist card.”

First of all, these are not all presumably evil (unless you’re John Edwards and happen to have worked for one) “hedge funds.” As the lawyer representing these firms, Tom Lauria, told Frank Beckmann of WJR radio in Detroit last week:

What people really need to understand is that the people who bought this debt are pensioneers, teachers’ credit unions, personal retiree accounts, retirement plans, college endowments. That’s who my clients act as fiduciaries for.

Lauria was also saying in so many words, “We’re just doing our job.”

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), passed in 1974 with strong bipartisan support, subjects retirement plans to a very strict standard of fiduciary duty, specifically:

(1) … a fiduciary shall discharge his duties with respect to a plan solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries and —

(A) for the exclusive purpose of:

(i) providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries; and

(ii) defraying reasonable expenses of administering the plan

There is nothing ambiguous about this requirement and nothing about the word “solely” or the term “exclusive purpose” to misunderstand. The Wall Street Journal’s Gregory Corcoran also pointed out on April 30 that hedge fund managers are subject to a nearly identical common-law standard, “to the exclusion of any contrary interest.”

Oh goodie, Mr. Bones! Here is a splendid opportunity for us to scrutinize the economics of Outer Pajamastán!

Back at LFA, Dr. Marx always used to teach us to begin there, did he not? I fear we have not always heeded that advice. Doubtless we are the poorer for not doing more strictly as we were told.

Ah, well, repentance now and amendment of life, sir, that’s the ticket!

___

Neocomrade T. Blumer does not propose to make the path of _Economique d’abord!_ smooth and easy, though. By his third sentence he is goin’ on about ” ‘cowards’ ” — I punctuate with scrupulous meticulosity, sir, if that’s a word, for the neocomrade himself insists on quotation marks. Why, T. Blumer may be no genuine worldly philosopher at all, only another Wingnut City amateur moraliser!

Next we get ” playing ‘the Obama-is-a-communist card’ “,
which is less promising still, because in addition to bein’ remote from high mammonology, play at cards has traditionally been frowned upon by moralisers. And in the sentence after that, the neocomrade is reduced to the level of four-letter words (E-V-I-L)

Not exactly St. Adam Smith, it sure looks like!

I think, Mr. Bones, that I shall relax my proposed repentance and amendment a notch or two and consider T. Blumer _sub specie oratoris_ instead. He invites such treatment by makin’ that deplorable rhetorical move thee will remember from Impeachmentgate days of yore, the one that goes “All you need to know about ___(X)___ is ___(Y)____.”

T. Blumer fills in his first blankness with “hedge funds” and follows up by quotin’ “the people who bought this debt are pensioneers, teachers’ credit unions, personal retiree accounts, retirement plans, college endowments.”

(“Why do bad hedges happen to good people, Professor Pangloss,” asked Candide while picking his nose.”)

To fortify his impeachsterism, T. Blumer brings up some really heavy artillery, the Eichmann Defense! “Lauria was also saying in so many words, ‘We’re just doing our job.’ ”

Thee may not think that ploy quite as trashy as I do, Mr. Bones, but nobody can accuse it of being primarily about economics. Or of bein’ good WC moralisation either: after all, Willie Sutton and Mr. Ponzi (and even Rabbi Madoff) had jobs too, did they not?

But after flirtin’ with ethics a little, T. Blumer reveals that what it *really* wants to be when it grows up is … ta-DAA! … an attorney.

Moving rapidly past “collateralized first-lien rights” and the like, we may skip to the neocomrade’s substantive appeal to the pajama-clad kangaroos in the jury box:

“Barack Obama’s definition of ‘the national interest’ is not relevant to ‘the interest of the [retirement plan] participants and beneficiaries.’ It is also not relevant to hedge funds’ common-law duties. If the non-TARP lenders act against their participants’ and investors’ interests and give in to such a deal, they will more than likely be virtually defenseless against shareholder and participant lawsuits.”

When Walter Mitty starts playing at Perry Mason, that is about what one would expect. Neocomrade T. Blumer hates the whole transaction for fundamental reasons of Party and AEIdeology, but he also likes to day-dream about starrin’ in courtrooms. Naturally he does not even begin to think with any authentic lawyerly narrowness.

Hence the vagueness of his Perry Mason turn, the impossibility of discerning which party to the litigation Blumer, Esq., is to be fantasized as actin’ as counsel for. On the whole the kangaroos will be better pleased if their hero is representin’ that little old lady in Dubuque whose pension seems somehow to have evaporated in the wake of the Crawford Crash, but unfortunately she does not have any proper standing. So Blumer, Esq., winds up mostly defendin’ the hedgsters. By the time he gets through draggin’ in Neocomrade K. D. Lewis of BAC, it would require a telescope to detect the Dubuque element.

“Blumer, Esq.” is the core of this performance, I think, but it is not the end of it. Tirin’ of Perry Mason, the neocomrade marches on boldly under the banners of the H*rv*rd Victory School. That is to say, he drops the JD patter and replaces it with MBA patter:

“There will likely be an anti-Chrysler backlash by those who see Team Obama’s tactics for what they are.”

Though I may be overrating him. Since that sentence and what follows it at some length is scarcely more than a glorified stock tip, perhaps T. Blumer is rather to be pigeon-holed with Neocomrades R. Santelli and J. Kramer (clowns who perform for the picture people) rather than with the grave and greedy case-studiers on the right bank of the Ch*rl*s.

People are starting to realize that Obama wants Chrysler sold to Fiat for exactly $0. Instead of selling Jeep and Ram at the auction block where they would bring in some decent cash, he’s giving the whole thing to a crappy many-times-bailed-out Italian company.

The administration is trying to really screw the bond-holders – I hope the Judge does not allow it. There is one group who are getting screwed harder – taxpayers. The Chrysler backlash starts now. I’ll never buy a car from them or Fiat until they return my $7 Billion.

This is a fair description of Barack Obama’s actions. He is a very dangerous man. The economically illiterate Obama, in his heart of hearts, believes that capitalists are scum bags who must be brought to heel by benevolent government bureaucrats. He does not believe in the law, but whatever feels good at the time. The elections of 2010 may be the last chance we have to save the United States from utter destruction.

I wonder why there seem to be no consequences for these blatant acts on the part of BO & Co. of circumventing the laws. This whole thing strikes me as a typical mobster scenario whereby BO tramples where ‘angels fear to tread’ and the ones who are targeted are afraid to fight back. It’s utterly outrageous. I cannot wait to see justice served but wonder if it ever will.

BO has managed to create a whole new dimension to ‘change’ that has taken many by surprise……..

Please — Obama is only keeping the wolves (aka the “Smart Guys” from a previous post) from tearing apart Chrysler and leaving no car company at all. Liquidating Chrysler à la Circuit City may be the usual way to deal with a failed/failing company and generate some quick cash, but unlike a business like Circuit City, a large auto maker is a core part of a country’s industrial infrastructure, and it’s much better in the long run to have a piece of Chrysler running, even if it’s under foreign control (don’t forget that the ownership is really basically just transferring from Daimler to Fiat). Obama is just looking at the big picture and being the responsible, forward looking President.

President Obama has a War Against Capitalism; it is a threat to his Socialist power grab. However, Capitalism is bigger than Obama & Obama will eventually be consumed by his own avarice & narcissism due to his own inability to lead a paper bag.

If the UAW is allowed to get control of Chrysler, it will eventually fall apart due to the UAW’s incompetence since they are more of a political organization than a true business. Unions are like that. Chrysler will eventually be liquidated one way or another. It’s a question of time.

Again, this will blow back on Obama in the long run. And not for the better. Obama is incompetence incarnate.

BC, Obama has absolutely no business telling private companies what to do given he has never run any business himself & it is not the role of government to micromanage any business. Dictators do these things, but not here in America.

BC 20: Please defend your position; how is an automobile company any different than any other corporation?

If WalMart were to go into bankruptcy, would you advocate the government prop them up? Why not? They’re a much bigger piece of our economy than Chrysler, and larger than Ford and GM put together (as measured by revenue.)

WORD! That’s some dope flow, Cinderfella. Mabes we can get some backup from your boys Chuck P, Bilgemaster 3000, and a thinking dude. Spew fo da planet. Fact, if you tell us where y’all is, me and my boys will come over and help you lay down some beats . . . know what I’m sayin? Ah, yeah, I think you do. Guess I won’t be waiting for the comeback on that idea.

BC: Please — Obama is only keeping the wolves (aka the “Smart Guys” from a previous post) from tearing apart Chrysler and leaving no car company at all.

Does BC mean Beyond Contracts or Beyond Clueless? Do you think people will invest when the government can come along – side step the rule of law – and nullify their contracts so they can divvy up what’s left of a failed company among their labor union supporters.

Capitalism and the rule of law go hand in hand as do socialism and fascism.

Consequences. These threats from Obama are material facts and must actually be disclosed to shareholders of the lenders. The lenders also face litigation if they cower and give away the store. I would like to see a lender/hedgefund caught tween obama threats and shareholder class action suits. It is a way to put heat on the lenders to do the right thing and defend their secured interests.

Chrysler is shut down. They stopped all manufacturing the day after declaring bankruptcy. Obama said the same day that he saved 30,000 jobs there. They intend or have said they want to start making cars again after an accepted reorginization plan. Most people do not know how complex restarting production is. Orders will have been cancelled and suppliers did stop immediately. An orderly shutdown can be re started in an orderly way. Many cars sold to order will need to be cancelled.

Welcome to our first American Dictator Beta Version 1.0. end-user license agreement. You will be required to update the teleprompter software weekly and when the inevitable gaffes and meltdownsglitches appear in our system. You do not have other software choices and therefore you must comply with our Beta version 1.0 at all times. Do not report any software malfunctions as we have reliability testers of our own to do that job. If our Beta version 1.0 happens to ruin your hard drive we will apologize profusely or we will blame the malfunction on you and charge you for our time. Therefore, we suggest you do not report any damages to your system. We already clicked “I agree” for you. Thank you for paying our game.

Actually, you might find buyers for the physical assets at liquidation because the UAW contracts and shop rules wouldn’t come with the package. So long as the primary motivation is to save the UAW and everyone else be damned nobody in their right mind is going to want to invest in GM or Chrysler.

Besides the mistreatment of secured creditors, my big beef is this: we’re not talking about companies that just need to have their balance sheets cleaned up. Overall industry volume has dropped – drastically, from its high of 16 million cars a few years ago. Meantime, the more successful automakers are presumably gaining share even as their unit volume shrinks.

That means that the equivalent of several car companies have to close their factories; or, alternatively, Chrysler and GM will be propped up so they can keep some plants running at a reduced rate, while other, more successful car companies have to lay people off because they’re competing on a tilted playing field. But hey, those suckers work at non-union plants in red states, so why should Obama care?

Why you coming down on the brothers with all your gangsta rap? You are insulting the ones who helped vote BHO into office, and he isn’t even a real black. All he is is a commie, and you are a flaming asshole!

We don’t get into marriage because it’s a prequisite to divorce. We don’t elect a president because we want to find out what impeachment is like, either.

Obama brags about being the shield protecting business from the pitchforks. Only a lefty-to-the-bone can see it that way. What Obama is up against is not anger towards capitalism. That’s only a theory bounced around among conceited liberals, who do not have a grasp of what americans truly think.

This president is up against patriots defending the American values. They are not brandishing pitchforks, they are talking about principles under attack. When we see Al Capone and Mussolini rolled into one, we recognize the danger.

I am still buying Ford, but I may not do so much longer. I believe I’ll stop buying all union-manufactured goods when I know the union involvement. Certainly, I’ll never buy anything the government is involved in. And at my age, I don’t have to.

I notice that writers invariably believe that Obama and his advisors know what they are doing, and I am sure they know they are punishing capitalism to install socialism, but they truly don’t comprehend economics or economic principles, or they would not be the Communist and Nazi thugs that they are. If you comprehends economics, you can’t be a socialist.

#3 JHM . . . Splendid! Oomph and style in abundance. You had me at Pajamastan. But be warned, when the micro-minds here get pushed back on their heels (or to their knees as some Ken Mehlmanites prefer) they are likely to lash out.

Typical weapons of choice include:
Don’t you have homework to do?
Bush isn’t president, followed by some vague reference to Jimmy Carter.
Children, grandchildren, GREAT grandchildren.
Any chance to insert the word “boy”
Standing up for the working Americans (unless they’re union)
Joe Palin, Sarah Plumber, and Christ Jesus
Liberals want to take away my gub

Of course, all of this comes handily wrapped in red, white and blue victimhood, courtesy of talk radio. But you knew that already.

You are operating under the impression that the split is Republican/Democrat. That is not it at all. Republican administrations have worked hard to create the mess the nation is in. The big difference is that they go at it with slightly different means and aren’t quite so brazen about flouting the law. Also there are a few Republicans who still believe that the Constitution ought to be the law of the land.

Right now the Republican party is trying to figure out if it will represent tradition and the rule of law or whether it will just offer a an alternative route to the demise of the American experiment. Republicans haven’t the power to do much except express misgivings. A handful are shouting but the leftist propaganda machine (MSM) gives them little or no coverage and what it does give is aimed at belittling and disparaging them. And for the foreseeable future things are only going to get worse for the GOP. So don’t look for anything from them. The ball is squarely in the left’s court and whatever results from their actions will be their responsibility and their’s alone.

The loyal opposition needs a better marketing arm. Whether it’s the GOP, GM, or Lauria, someone needs to lobby the right people, mainly mainstream America. Don’t the people realize that Obama is going after your money? The Chrysler fiasco is the most blatant instance. Obama, with the aid of the mainstream media, is allowed to demonize whoever he wishes, while the general public doesn’t realize he’s demonizing them. In painting the hedge funds as unpatriotic, he is saying that the private investors (i.e. Joe Public) needs to take it up the arse.

We need to change the lingo. Instead of championing hedge funds, Lauria should say he’s fighting the cause for pensions, credit unions, etc. They’re the ones who stand to lose, as the hedge funds will still get their cut in the end via fees and commissions. “Hedge funds” as a word is poisonous to the average, uneducated public. They don’t know whose money is being lost. They just think it’s a bunch of money grubbers who have more than enough money.

As long as we allow the President to frame the argument and define the language, we’re in for a whole lot of pain.

From “a Man for All Seasons”:
Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

Let us hope that the day comes and shortly when the laws that Obama ignores so readily will turn on him.

The tenor of the comments to this post speak to the fear bordering on nausea that is pervading a portion of the public, but another thread keeps popping up: “What shall we do?” say they, running about in circles with their hands on their heads.

Here is what I suggest. Start a committee to support Sheila Bair to represent the Republicans in the next election.

May I humbly suggest that Sheila Bair, head of FDIC, would make a worthy candidate in 2012. Her views are fact-based, her stage-presence is superior to that of President Obama, her intellectual achievements and personal history are available to public view, she has run for office as a Republican in the past, her values are mainstream, and she has a grasp of economic issues that is so advanced that she leaves Mr. Obama in the HEPA-filter dust. She can win, becoming America’s first female American president.

Should you not be in a position to start such a committee, then kindly include the above-paragraph in every one of your emails. Chances are someone will ultimately decide to look into her as a real alternative to President Obama.

In answer to your question to JHM, I believe it may be just a bit of mental masturbation – and from the post a very little bit. It only satisfies him/her but leaves the rest of us either 1) disgusted, 2) bemused, or maybe even 3) feeling a small amount of pity for the individual.

And then we see in #41 that Sheesh has joined in and it looks to be a bit of mutual masturbation.

Sorry. I know this didn’t add anything to the ongoing discussion of Mr. Blumer’s article, but I just couldn’t resist.

Jerry, Sheila Bair appears to have a lot of positives…she has run for office before, a seat in the U.S. Congress (she lost the 1990 Republican nomination in the 5th Kansas district by 760 votes to Dick Nichols).
Good outside the box thinking, IMO that is a good thing.

Obama and the Dems are wasting billions on hopeless efforts to keep these buggy and whip companies alive knowing that if they fail they can claim to have tried to help these “workers” and pander for their vote. In the mean time, all the oxygen for our economic engine is being consumed by all this wasteful dithering and real innovators are unable to flourish and start moving this nation forward again.

Sheesh – ” …the great D-wad?” What country are you from? What language are you speaking? Why don’t you go back there and stay off this site. You stink the place up.

As for smelting, the great American industrial machine is still working pumping out those 9 mm bullets. Make sure that when you lib-tards serialize them that you get one with your name on it! You’ll be looking cross-eyed when you see that one.

I am not going to buy a car from the UAW. It is already anted that the treasury will take over the pensions of the union, which was also my money and my pension. I also did not like paying for someone elses mortgage with big government largess.

The only arguments I hear from the left involve an irrational and emotional disconnect from logic. I have yet to hear any person explain to me how skipping a legal process and forcing people to abandon their legal obligation to protect their clients is fair. How does taking retirement funds from one group of people to fund another group’s come close to being fair.
If anyone still supports this man I have nothing but contempt fot them.

President Obama has to pay his masters, the Unions, back. All of the Unions have turned the Democrats–including Obama–into EUNUCHS. Therefore, I just laugh at Obama when he talks about the Republicans’ “special interests.”

He’s trading one group of interests over another. Isn’t this a prid pro quo?

Ok, here’s a simple question. If you truly feel that unions are literally the enemy of economic growth, do you feel that the Federal Government should pass legislation to make all unions illegal and to repeal the right to collective bargaining?

Seriously, you guys complain so strongly about them, time to put your money where your mouth is. Unless you’re willing to push legislation to ban unions, then maybe you should move on to other issues.

29. sheesh:
You still here boy? Waaaasss uuup?
Definitely not you; you gotta long way to go to approach the league that Chuck P, Bilgemaster 3000, and a thinking dude, (and myself) are in.
You don’t really look like you got da stuff for it. Nice try though. Best of luck.

Unions should not be made illegal Erasmus; only Democrats would think of some law such as you have just said. No, but one should not be FORCED to join a Union with the Orwellian Employee Free Choice Act (Card Check) since it makes anonymous votes known. When push comes to shove, the Congress itself votes in secret. And many more Democrats are now under pressure from their constituents to vote against Card Check or keep it in a filibuster.

Unions are corrupt in that the money goes–without much choice–to Democratic coffers; likewise, Unions are corrupt in that they drive up prices & they lose ground against their non-Union competition. Unions also restrict a company’s growth & the Union contracts prevent the company from filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy to reorganize. In other words Erasmus, Unions are counterproductive & are only another resource for Democrats to get money. That, in & of itself, is not a reason to exist. In fact, I believe it is a terrible reason to exist.

Union states have higher unemployment than non-Union states. See Michigan for the example.

@69 no we would not support the Government outlawing unions – we recognize the rights of anyone to make associations with whomever they want. What we do not agree with are laws that favor unions more than the individual. We believe in the free markets, if the market thinks prices are too high as a result of union labor the market will not purchase their goods. As is the case with the car companies, however, when that happens the unions should have to deal with the mess they helped create, not get favored treatment. I guess you just don’t get it, we want the federal government to mind its own business.

-Hope everyone had/is having a nice Thursday. I get to see Carrie Fisher perform live this weekend as my birthday prezzie (yeah, she’s a Liberal but I lubz her anyway)! I’m tempted to piss her off and roll my hair up into giant, blonde princess Leia buns.

Higher taxes is just like throwing good money after bad or imagine taking all the money in your wallet & bank account then flushing it down the toilet. That is what the federal government has done with our tax payer money in the TARP funds. Do you get BC & Erasmus? …

The best thing we can do to hasten the failure of the Obama way is to steer clear of GM and Chrysler vehicles. If you need a new car buy a Ford. They had the sense to say ‘no thanks’ to Obama and may in the end come out ahead for the decision. I own a Tahoe but won’t ever buy another GM product nor will I ever buy a Chrysler product. Not just to spite Obamarxist but also to put another nail inn the coffin of the UAW.
I’m also closing my accounts with Bank of America. They can fail too for all I care.

Obama and his socialist allies in Congress may be able to take over American companies but they can’t compel the public to do business with them.

“…Uncle Sam desperate to prop up GM any way it conceivably can.” except let up on useless and destructive regulations that are no small contributor to the bad situation the auto companies are in and the bad decisions they have been forced to make due to Washington’s perverse incentives. It takes s PhD candidate in statistics to understand the CAFE rules and I don’t know what discipline could explain the “two fleet rule.”

Isn’t it funny that the financial problems with GM and Chrysler that the government is trying to fix are problems the government actually created to begin with. Whatever the federal government touches it ruins. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Take Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac with the lowering of standers in lending practices which brought about the housing bubble and now the mortgage crisis which in turn hurt the auto industry. Now the government has just single handily ruined B of A with their meddling. Seriously folks the government creates more problems than it solves. This (yes we can) trash and so called (Change) is turning into a real nightmare fast. We may see the decline of America into a third world country in the next couple of years if this insane madness continues by the Obama administration. It’s time to wake up people!!!

@81 I personally would never want to be part of a union if I had a choice, I have far too much confidence in my own abilities. If I were a member I would have never been allowed to learn the systems I am now responsible for at my place of work. And as a result of that freedom I was able to negotiate a very substantial raise, and made myself indispensable.

I understand the want and need for some to organize, but personally I would never trade my freedom for security. In my experiences many talented people become very frustrated having to wait in line behind people who have become unproductive yet get to keep their cushy schedules and bloated pay. Also, senior members of the unions have a different set of interests from the junior members, and are quick to sell out future generations of “brothers” to keep their own entitlements. I do not believe in a system that devalues productivity.

That said, I do recognize the value of trade unions for maintaining and distributing valuable skills and setting standards for unregulated industries. Other than that, I agree that most unions have outgrown their necessity, and have become more powerful than the companies they work for, creating huge inefficiencies and increased costs for consumers.

“How can the UAW represent Ford workers at the same time they own Chrysler?”

Eric (#83), if the bankruptcy judge bows down to President Obama, the Unions will be in a conflict of interest owning a large % of the company; therefore, with the UAW firmly in control, Chrysler will continue to sputter away & not make any profits. Since the UAW is similar to a political organization instead a true business model, it will fail. Liquidation of Chrysler will become reality. It’s just a question of when.

Unions are a poison given their own self-fulfilling prophecy due to their own corruption. The Unions have forged their own Scarlet Letter upon their uniforms, yet they seem unaware of it. I see it clearly as day.

The Democrats need to get out of the Unions too since they feed the corruption. It is one thing to have constituents in Unions, but to be bought & sold by Unions is an altogether different matter. This would make a good topic for a 1 hour special by a good critical thinking journalist.

Re #90 “The Democrats need to get out of the Unions too since they feed the corruption. It is one thing to have constituents in Unions, but to be bought & sold by Unions is an altogether different matter.”

Isn’t this sort of like the “What came first the chicken or the egg?” question? What caused the corruption, the Democrats or the Unions?

Everybody seems to forget that hedge funds are used to protect the positions of investors. ‘Investors’ in this sense is folks who have pension funds (including union workers and retired union workers); anyone who has a 401, anyone who has a passbook savings account; anyone who is working a job where they are vested or not yet vested in their stock plan or retirement plan.

All are the victims of Obama’s hold-up here. It’s robbery, pure and simple.

A Thinking Person (#91), I believe the Unions have always been corrupt given the Mob was a resource for them in their founding; the Mob moved into politics & eventually to the Democrats. The Unions’ corruption has come from within, but the Democrats’ link has made the corruption more so than without the connection.

The Unions are another source to funnel funds to the Democrats. See President Teleprompter threaten California over the Unions. The man has no soul, no principles, & all narcissism.

Cannedjam, I couldn’t have said it better myself. My ex worked in a union plant, the union went on strike because the “old fellers” wanted an extra week of vacation. My ex, being a newbie, didn’t get any union benefits for the months the strike was going on yet he had to spend 8 hours on the line…we had zero insurance for that time period and a very sick child. The union didn’t get what they wanted, they went back to work and the company never recovered…they went bankrupt…now those geezers have all the vacation time they want!

to prsTM: (Sorry for the delayed response) you can’t go by just revenue numbers to judge how important an industrial company is. Look at the market cap of, say, Google versus Boeing — but which company is much, MUCH more crucial to the well-being of the country? Walmart, while huge, is in an industry with low start up costs: lease an empty store, fill it up with stuff, and voila — you’re in the retail business. A car company, though…there are vast amounts of specialized processes, tooling, manufacturing and supply chains, along with a huge ripple effects to other important industries needing a thriving-enough vehicle manufacturing business. If that all goes away, restoring it in this day and age would be nigh impossible for this country.

Toyota and Subaru and such could create more car manufacturing plants in this country to partly compensate, but…..that’s strictly hit or miss, and we would just be a Vietnam or an Indonesia to their Nike on the food chain.